


At the Sign of the Wolfe

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Holby City
Genre: AU, Elizabethan AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 16:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: It is 1585, and Mistress Wolfe awaits word of her husband and child, fled to France for the sake of a faith she does not share. When a messenger arrives, she brings more than just news...





	At the Sign of the Wolfe

**Author's Note:**

> An absurd Elizabethan AU for day 4 of Berena Appreciation Week, which is quite frankly getting out of hand. What am I doing? What will I be like by day 7?!
> 
> Please send help

Swift feet patter along the alley, deftly skipping over the central channel where the effluent from the houses runs sluggishly down towards the stream. The hooded figure keeps close to the houses, beneath the overhang of jutting eaves to avoid being caught by any new deposits flung into the street.

In the deepening twilight, dark eyes dart brightly beneath the hood, scanning the street for a sign. Ignoring wooden placards swinging and creaking in the night breeze, past windows lit with single candles, or brightly with a blazing fire within, not hesitating to glance at symbols and ciphers daubed on lintels, carved into door posts: it seems every house in London now bears the secret emblem of the occupants’ allegiance to one Queen or another; adherence to the old faith or the new; loyalty to their Lord or to his rival. Every word, glance, gesture is loaded in these troubled times, and one must step as carefully through conversation as through the foul streets.

Here at last is the sought-after sign - no crudely painted wooden panel or hastily printed bill, but finely wrought ironwork: the head of a wolf thrown back in a howl to the moon, which tonight hangs obligingly above, bringing a strange sense of life to the beautiful creature. Barely glancing behind, the figure opens the door on well-oiled hinges and slips noiselessly within.

“Welcome, friend - if friend ye be, which I doubt,” says a gruff, cautious voice from behind the bar.

“Fletch, Fletch - all men are friends here. I’ll not have dissent spilling through these doors, though the streets run red without. Come, friend - the ale is good, though the company is poor!”

The second voice is low but light, but if it is strange to find a woman here in the empty tavern, the newcomer shows no surprise, and it is clear why when the heavy woollen hood is thrown back to reveal the shapely head of a handsome woman, her dark glossy hair tied back in a simple braid beneath a pearl-starred cowl. Her bodice is low, as is the fashion, and Fletch coughs in consternation.

“Od’s britches, Mistress Bernie, it’s a wench! ‘Ere, get out of it, you tart, we ain't that kind of establishment!”

Mistress Wolfe’s face is thunderous. “Fletch! Do you wish to sleep with the pigs tonight? Keep a civil tongue in your addled head! Go, turn the beef on the spit before you spoil the ale with your sour tongue.” He slinks away to the kitchen like a dog chastised, and Mistress Wolfe looks to the lady. “Madam, your pardon. My man is simple - he means no harm, but his tongue is quicker than his mind, I fear.”

The dark lady laughs becomingly. “No matter, mistress: I have endured worse on this journey. You say there is beef: is it… tender?” She leaves a small pause between the final words, just a beat, nothing more, but it enough to make the hair on Mistress Wolfe’s neck stand on end.

“As a newborn calf.” Eyes as dark as her own regard her from beneath loosely coiffed blonde hair, and the tall slim frame is held tensely in the stillness of the moment. “You are hungry?”

“Like the wolf.” And in a heartbeat, Mistress Wolfe runs to grasp her hands, those dark eyes searching her own desperately.

“Oh, you bring word from France? Tell me, what news - do not spare me!”

Pushing her away a little, but holding firm to her hands, the dark lady delivers her message. “The dunnock has returned to his nest, the fledgling safe in his bosom.”

The taller woman sobs in relief, and sways dangerously. Together they sit on the rough wooden bench, and she slumps brokenly. “They are safe! I had feared them dead, or worse, captured. Oh, sister, you have done me such service!” Tears are not far away, and the dark lady stands for a moment, drops the latch across the door so none may interrupt them. She searches at the bar, and returns with a flagon of wine and two goblets.

“Something stronger than your English goat’s piss, I think.” The friendly insult gives her away as Scottish more than her accent, so very slight. She pours the wine, drinks, then spits it over the table. “Faugh! I had rather drink goat’s piss than this! I shall send to my wine merchant for you, and he will bring you twenty skins of Syrah. It is French, but tell no-one!” She winks, smiling conspiratorially. “Now listen. Are we safe to talk freely here? Your man, he can be trusted? Good. Marcus Dunn is safely in Paris, your daughter with him. They are under the protection of the Swedish ambassador to France, Master Hanssen, who has sent me here, to you. It is too perilous for them to send you word other than by me, but your husband would have me bestow his thanks and blessings on you for all you have done to keep him safe.”

Mistress Wolfe’s tears have dried, but her brow is furrowed in confusion. “They are protected, you say? What can a Swede care for an English Catholic renegade?”

“Master Hanssen stands outside the dispute between England and France, and has little patience with their squabbling churchmen. He and his fellow ambassadors are managing to hold the peace for now, though who knows how long it may last. He is a good man, and he sent me to you as a kindness to me as much as to you. My name is Serena Campb - no, McKinnie. The Widow McKinnie, for my fool of a husband fancied himself a master spy, and used my mother's connections in the French court to pass messages to England to try and ingratiate himself with Elizabeth and Walsingham. He was incompetent, and put all our lives in danger, but his treachery was discovered before he could betray so much as a mouse. His head is on a spike in Paris now, and it may stay there for ever for all I care!"

There is a sudden venom in the woman’s voice, and her eyes flash with anger, so that Mistress Wolfe shrinks away from her in alarm.

"My dear, forgive me. I do not share your husband's faith, but I could see that he is a good man, and cares deeply for you and your children. He was grieved that you and your son would not join him, but he wished you to know that neither he nor your daughter bear you any malice, but pray daily for your souls. Edward Campbell would have sold Master Dunn and the girl for a penny or a kind word from Walsingham, and I cannot mourn a man who held the lives of others so cheaply. Henrik Hanssen saved my life by sending me here, for they would surely have taken me with my husband else."

"I am glad they did not. Master Hanssen sounds like a friend indeed. Mistress McKinnie, I would have you know that I share my husband's faith no more than you. In fact, I profess no faith at all." She meets her eyes boldly, with a challenging look. Mistress McKinnie smiles warmly, covering her hands with her own.

"Then we shall be the fastest of friends, for my own faith did not survive my infancy. Will you not call me Serena?"

"Then you must call me Berenice. Or, as you have heard Fletch call me Bernie, why do not you do likewise?"

Fletch brings through platters of beef and bread, and once he is satisfied that Serena is no threat to his mistress, he leaves them and returns to the kitchen, where he sleeps alongside the warm bodies of Bernie’s beloved hounds, Digby and Dominic.

“Truly, Berenice, the wine here is an offence to the name. Here, try this” and she brings a wine skin, half empty, from her travelling bag. The Syrah is everything she promised, and conversation flows along with the wine. They commiserate on the lot of women, who needs must marry for money, whether there be love or no. Bernie tells her haltingly that she will always thank Marcus for her children, but that she never loved him, could never have loved him, when her heart could never belong to a man. Serena understands, for as she says, although he gave her a daughter (who beloved as she is, is as foolish as her father), Edward could never meet any of her womanly needs:

“For indeed, who but a woman could truly understand a woman? Why might not a maid wed a maid?” she muses, gazing into the fire. Their hands have been joined these long hours since, and they sit closely together on the bench in silent communion for a long time.

“What will you do now?” Berenice asks eventually. “Where will you go?”

Serena shakes her head slowly. “What can I do? A lady with no skills, no friends, no connections? I suppose I must find another husband, and hope that he will be a kinder and better man than Edward Campbell.” She looks sideways at Bernie. “Unless you have a position for a wench at the Sign of the Wolfe after all?”

Berenice laughs for the first time in what has felt like years. “You heard the man - we are not ‘that kind of establishment.’ But I suppose _I_ might find a use for a bed warmer…”

Serena’s hand slaps at her arm in mock indignation, and Bernie starts to her feet, pulling Serena after her.

“Come, Mistress McKinnie, let us warm the bed together!” They run up the wooden staircase, tripping and laughing as they go.  
  
In the kitchen, Digby thumps his tail against Dominic’s flank and Fletch snores gently on. The laughing and shrieking from upstairs subsides into a gentler, slower song, and the iron wolf keeps on howling at the moon until morning.


End file.
